Dells v. Kennedy’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

17 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[t]he elector possessing the qualifications prescribed by the constitution is invested with the constitutional right to vote at any election in this state. These qualifications are explicit, exclusive, and unqualified by any exceptions, provisos or conditions, and the constitution, either directly or by implication, confers no authority upon the legislature to change, impair, add to or abridge them in any respect.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Network, Inc. v. Scott Walker

2. “[E]very one having the constitutional qualifications [at the time of election] may go to the polls, vested with the franchise, of which no statutory condition precedent can deprive him [or her][, b]ecause the constitution makes him [or her], by force of his [or her] present qualifications, 'a qualified voter at such election.'”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Network, Inc. v. Scott Walker

3. “a registry law can be sustained only, if at all, as providing a reasonable mode or method by which the constitutional qualifications of an elector may be ascertained and determined, or as regulating reasonably the exercise of the constitutional right to vote at an election”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Network, Inc. v. Scott Walker